What did Pasteur presume initially about the rabies germs? (Man Against Virus)
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Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) is the subject of our first posting of the New Year. Pasteur was history’s greatest microbiologist and, perhaps, its most famous medical scientist. Pasteur was also an early figure in the history of virology for his 1885 discovery of a rabies vaccine; only the second antiviral vaccine and the first attenuated one (see Aside 1). However, the main point of this tale is that Pasteur let pass an especially propitious opportunity to discover that the rabies agent is one of a previously unrecognized class of microbes; a class that is fundamentally different from the already known bacteria. Its members are submicroscopic and grow only inside of a living cell. Pasteur was just one step away from discovering viruses.
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur
[Aside 1: Attenuation is the conversion of a pathogenic microbe into something that is less able to cause disease, yet is still able to induce immunity. Edward Jenner’s 1798 smallpox vaccine, the world’s first vaccine, as well as the first antiviral vaccine, was not based on the principle of attenuation. Instead, it contained live, unmodified cowpox virus. Although hardly understood in Jenner’s day, his smallpox vaccine worked because cowpox, which is not virulent in humans, is immunologically cross-reactive with smallpox. Thus, the relatively benign cowpox virus induced immunity against the related, deadly smallpox virus (1).]
The distinctive nature of viruses would first begin to be revealed in 1887 by a scientist of much less renown than Pasteur; the Russian microbiologist Dmitry Ivanovsky. The virus concept would be further advanced in 1898 by the accomplished Dutch botanist Martinus Beijerinck (2). In any case, to better appreciate how anomalous it was that Pasteur did not discover viruses, we review the greatness of his earlier achievements. After that, we consider the opportune circumstance that he let go by.
Pasteur was a chemist by background. Thus, his first major scientific discovery, at 26 years of age, was as a chemist. It was his 1847 discover of molecular asymmetry; that certain organic molecules exist in two alternative molecular structures, each of which is the mirror image of the other. Additionally, pairs of these asymmetric molecules are chemically indistinguishable from each other, and balanced mixtures of them rotate the plane of polarized light.
Pasteur’s discovery of molecular asymmetry was one of the great discoveries in chemistry. Yet his research would take on a momentous new focus when he began to investigate the chemistry of fermentations. This new course was inspired by the fact that while asymmetric molecules are not generated in the laboratory, they are found in the living world. And, since asymmetric molecules are found among fermentation products, Pasteur hypothesized that fermentation is a biological process, which he proceeded to demonstrate in 1857, basically by showing that fermentation products did not arise in nutrient broth if any microbes that might have been present were either killed by heating or removed by filtration. What’s more, he showed that specific fermentations are caused by specific microorganisms. Additionally, he discovered that fermentation is usually an anaerobic process that actually is impaired by oxygen; a phenomenon known as the “Pasteur effect.” And, he put forward the notion of aerobic versus anaerobic microbes.
Pasteur put his experience studying fermentations to practical use when he came to the rescue of the French wine industry, which was on the verge of collapse because of the wine becoming putrefied. Pasteur showed that the problem was due to bacterial contamination, and then showed that the putrefaction could be prevented by heating the wine to 50 to 60 °C for several minutes; a procedure we now refer to as pasteurization. Wines are seldom pasteurized today because it would kill the organisms responsible for the wines maturing. But, as we know, pasteurization is applied to many contemporary food products, especially milk. Pasteur also aided the beer industry by developing methods for the control of beer fermentation.